


Long-Forgotten Fairytale

by moodorbs



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Multi, Years Later, its like, max is trans, neil is steve jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:29:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22152019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moodorbs/pseuds/moodorbs
Summary: Max shows up at Neil's doorstep years after he broke things off at camp.
Relationships: Max/Neil (Camp Camp), Nerris/Nikki (Camp Camp)
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Yeet anon](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Yeet+anon).

Neil is at his table working on a project, papers strewn everywhere, beakers bubbling and monitors glowing, when the doorbell rings. He doesn't pay it much mind--the facial-recognition software should let whoever it is in or alert his security force if they're an intruder--but it's what his house's speakers say that start him running to the front door.

"Neil, Max is here."

He didn't think Max would ever show up, thought that year at camp would be the last time they ever hugged or held hands under the table, the last time Max slugged him in the shoulder or stepped on his toes during a kiss as a little reminder of hey, tallass, I'm still the one in charge, but Neil had programmed him in anyway, had taken the time to build software to age him every year so he could come back if need be, and holy shit it's really happened, Max is back!

Neil careens off the table, sliding in his slippered feet to the double doors that open into his (saying mansion is impolite) house, and by the time he gets there from his workspace he's a mess, but that doesn't matter because there's Max, standing in the doorway, cigarette dangling from his lips, snakebites glinting in the porch light.

They stand there for a second, the two of them, seeing how different they have grown up to be, figuring out where their paths diverged to bring them to millionaire and scruffy dropout, but that changes when Max (how did he grow facial hair? He's sporting an incredibly shirty goatee and Neil can't help but internally laugh and maybe if it was years ago he would have vocalized it, but Max is fragile now, he can tell) jostles past him into the entryway and looks around nonchalantly, taking in the vaulted ceiling and the marble hallways covered with research notes and stained carpet, and breaks the silence.

"I'm assuming you have a bathroom somewhere in here because I've been on a greyhound for three fucking days and I feel like I just got shat out of Mitt Romney's lower intestine."


	2. Chapter 2

Nikki is absolutely irate when Neil lets it slip that Max is back. He doesn’t mean to, they’re just having a casual conversation about her and her datemate’s podcast (Nat 69, a hit with queer nerds posessed of a cruder taste in humor) when he says that he’ll have to show it to Max. NIkki’s eyes widen and she lunges forward, the Holophone (copyright Pranikoff Industries, 20XX) image of her blurring and distorting until it becomes clear that she’s repeatedly slapping her (very fragile, very expensive, very not-open-to-the-public-yet prototype) camera.  
“You absolute bastard! When were you going to tell me that my best friend--your EX-BOYFRIEND--had waltzed back into our lives??”

Neil waves his hands in front of the projection, trying to pacify her, but Nikki just steps back from the camera and begins pacing around the room, hands buried in her pixie cut.

“Fuck, Neil, I don’t even--Wait.” She turns to face the camera once again, and Neil feels a sense of dread. Nikki has always been able to see right through him, right through both him and Max, right to their cores, and he’s afraid that’s what she’s doing now.

“Neil. Are you letting him be your stupid fish tongue thingy?”

“NIkki, you’re going go have to put that in normal people terms.”

Nerris’s voice floats in from offscreen.  
“Hey, babe, is that Neil? Why is he three feet tall and in our living room?”

Nikki turns to face her datemate.

“Max is back.”

Neil hears bags of groceries hit the ground and something shatter before the call abruptly ends.

\--

He pushes the Holophone away and grits his teeth, hands fisted in his hair. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, there was supposed to be hugs and love and an outpouring of affection and forgiveness, and Max would slot back into their lives like he had never left.  
Frustrated, Neil navigates over to a browser and searches “fish tongue thing”. He scrolls through about a page of results before figuring out what Nikki had been referencing.  
There’s a parasite that enters a fish’s mouth, eats their tongue, and replaces it, providing the fish with stimulants in return for most of its food. He has to admit, that’s a little bit on-the-nose. Max just waltzed into his house, took comtrol again, just like he always had and always will, and suddenly Neil’s life went from predictable to holy shit, what? in the span of just a few weeks.  
It’s not like Neil is complaining. No, he’s really doing the opposite, his life was boring, just day after day of doing the shitty parts of what he loved most in the world, marketing and finance and (god, anything but) consumer feedback groups, making decisions he didn’t want to even think about just so he can keep inventing and creating and being himself. Sure, it had been tolerable, and some parts of running a company were actually fun, like working with Rudy on the logo and on someparts of the advertisements, but honestly? All in all it was a drudge.  
Max, though... Max changed that. Even when he was pissed off at the man, llike when the expensive microwave had broken because the idiot put three fucking cans of Chef Boyardee inside of it at two in the goddamn morning, even when Max refused to switch from his crappy little flip phone to somehting that was produced by the company his friend (boyfriend? There’s been sex since he got back, but always initiated by and more for Max than anyone else, and they aren’t anywhere near the level of affection they once were at) literally ran, even when he hijacked the 3D printers in Neil’s workspace to print anime girls with improbably large chests, Max brought a stable sort of instability to Neil’s life, one that Neil wasn’t likely to give up anytime soon...


End file.
